in the end
by Ddischordia
Summary: "Over the years, a big and impossible distance had opened up like a yawning chasm between us. It was no longer the friendship of Katara and Zuko. Now we were 'the Avatar's wife' and 'the Fire Lord'. Our titles defined our relationship, and it was one of respect and restraint." Six years post-war, Katara visits Zuko following the birth of Tenzin. The past repeats itself. Zutara.


_Inspiration struck and I ended up rewriting Years Later. Stylistic changes, mostly, and one major change. The original is still up for comparison._

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><p>Aang ascended into the air on Appa's back, and I watched him fly away. He's all smiles, but stress makes his eyes weary as he waves to me and vanishes into the distance. I knew he didn't want to do this, but his duty as the Avatar comes before me. Comes before our family. I knew that, and yet it still planted a seed of bitterness in my heart. It was unfair of me to think that way, but I held our three-month old child in my arms. If not now, when? At least Tenzin slept during the flight. I wouldn't have been able to make it otherwise. Even though I felt betrayed, it wasn't enough to stop me from being relieved, in a way. It was wrong, but a weight lifted off my chest with Aang's departure.<p>

I cradled my son in my arms as I looked around the courtyard for any sign of Zuko. He hadn't come to meet us at the ordained time. I wasn't even sure if he'd had the time to read my hastily written letter to him. He was a busy man, after all. We had exchanged a lot of letters following the end of the war, but over time those letters came further and further apart. I had woken up one day realizing that Zuko had just stopped replying. At the time, I had shrugged my shoulders, but his dismissal had cut me. Perhaps I should have expected it, with the way he implied that the work was overwhelming him, and the fact that stress bled through his ink strokes. My memory of his last letter stuck out, but Zuko had not been the only one of us to change.

It hadn't been so bad that first year. We were still united, trying to stave off civil war and quell rebellions. It was Team Avatar, second edition. Our base had relocated itself to Zuko's study. We went to galas and meetings as diplomats and delegates, united under Aang. We all worked day and night to secure Zuko's tenuous grasp on the Fire Nation. Instead of making peace we were keeping it, and the gap between the two turned out to be more narrow than any of us expected.

Shortly after things became stabilized, Toph left to pursue her quest for glory in the Earth Kingdom. Sokka and Suki took a deserved vacation to the Kyoshi Islands. I hadn't wanted to leave, but Aang nearly dragged me out the door in the end. He said we had other obligations, but he promised we would visit often. We didn't.

Toph occasionally had a note dictated to us- Aang and I, that is. She told us about her adventures in the Earth Kingdom and beyond. She had taken back her champion's belt for old times' sake, living life as a quasi-hermit- as withdrawn as somebody as famous as she could be. Suki had recently given birth to a daughter. She and Sokka lived together in the south pole, now. My father had passed the mantle of tribe leader on to his son, but still watched over him closely. I knew how Sokka would respond to that kind of responsibility, but I was half a world away and unable to do anything about that. He would grow into it without me, and that knowledge created a yearning in me.

There were times when I had woken up, hardly believing that the time had passed. After we had first splintered off I rose still expecting to hear Toph bickering with somebody, expected Zuko to be off practicing his bending forms, and I had even looked forward to Sokka's snoring. And then when I realized that those days were over a dull nostalgia settled into my chest. It never fully faded.

In the blink of an eye five more years had gone by as the tide does. I saw them at least once a year, at the annual Fire Nation peace summit. It had been the culmination of the things we worked so hard for, and at the end there was a gala meant to commemorate the end of the war, and to pay our respects to those who had been lost to it. The last meeting had been ten months ago. Everybody had looked so different. Toph was a grown woman, my brother married with child, and Zuko… He was older. Obviously. But also more mature, more regal. He had come from being a boy to a man, and finally to a king. I wondered how changed I seemed to them.

Although our shared past wasn't always a happy one, I couldn't help but look at those sepia-tinged memories with longing. Things had been simpler, then. There had been no time to stop and think. We did what we had to do, and this was the result of all that. An old gloom gathered over my heart and I shoved it back down. Thoughts like those were dangerous.

The nostalgia that the gardens inspired in me passed, and I began to make my way to Zuko's office. I had its location memorized by heart. As I walked through the palace, guards and servants would bow to me. Even now I was known in the Fire Kingdom. I had been Zuko's political escort for the year we were stationed at the palace. It was hard to forget about the only Water Tribe girl referred to as "Lady Katara". Of course, the title was rarely used. I was now officially known as the Avatar's wife, his waterbender.

I stopped in front of Zuko's door, suddenly intimidated. I shifted Tenzin in my arms to free a hand. I knocked, and then I waited. For a moment I almost believed he wasn't there, and I would have gone to find a maid had the door not swung open behind me.

There was a pause. I stopped, slowly looking over my shoulder, and there he was. His hair was down and his lips pressed into a thin line. It seemed like he was debating how he should greet me.

"...Katara." He said, simply. The simple address had an effect on me that neither of us would have anticipated. All at once, I felt like throwing my arms around him and telling him that I'd missed him. We hadn't had a chance to speak to each other properly in years. I smiled at him warmly, but the gesture was not returned. There was something in his eyes that spoke of distance, and it made my joy cool. Zuko stood to the side, allowing me entrance into the study, but he stared through me into the hall beyond.

I entered the room. As I passed by him, I could feel no fondness. Immediately I noticed a change. Where there had once been six chairs, there were now only two, not including Zuko's own. Another sign that the past was past for good. He shut the door behind me and stood before it as if he were waiting for something.

"Did you get my letter?" I asked hopefully. I hadn't forgotten that he wasn't waiting for our arrival.

"I did."

"... Oh."

The coldness in his voice was palpable, and it stripped me of my eagerness to see him. I had been so caught up in the moment that I thought it would be like it was before. I had been wrong. He made no motions to explain his aloofness, or mutter conciliatory words. He had read my letter and he hadn't cared. That was what he meant. The fire lord cleared his throat, and I was forced to look up from Tenzin.

"Tea?"

I eyed him with uncertainty before saying "Sure."

He poured it for me without once meeting my eyes. I took a seat in front of his desk, and he on the other side. I took a sip and it seared my insides warm. Tenzin was cradled in the crook of my left arm, blissfully sleeping.

"How is Aang?" Zuko asked, trying to be casual.

"He's doing fine, he just needed to..."

"I know." He interrupted.

Yes, of course he did. It was in the letter I sent him, along with details about Tenzin. I noticed that Zuko hadn't offered anything but a cursory glance to my son. Silence settled over us again, and this time I was the one who broke it.

"How have you been?"

"Good."

I almost groaned. I was getting frustrated at his curtness. Why had he invited me into his study if he wasn't willing to have a conversation? Zuko coughed.

"Tenzin?"

And at that I perked up. A smile bloomed on my face. I raised him up in my arms so Zuko could see him.

"Perfect. Healthy. All mine."

My pride in my son was evident in my voice, even if my mind was asea in regards to how I had gotten here. Another pause. I pursed my lips.

"Has the Fire Nation been prosperous these last few years?"

"Our economy is on the rise once again."

"How are your ministers?" In our distant past I remembered what their traditionalist views did to him. He had ripped the crown from his topknot, steam escaping from his nostrils. He wanted to throw them all out. I convinced him not to.

"They're the same as ever."

And with that he clammed up again. Frustration mounted within me. I hadn't come here to be brushed off as a mere nuisance. Five years ago I had helped him write speeches, up until the crack of dawn. I helped him review documents, balance accounts, saw things not even his ministers did. I wrote letters until the ink stained my hands so black I thought it would never wash out. I even cooked for us during those late nights, brought him food when he forgot to eat. I saw him during his weakest moments, when the stress and the memories and the guilt caught up to him. I knew how the scar on his chest still gave him pain.

I was as if none of that had ever happened. I was now the same to him as I was to everyone else. The Avatar's wife; a figurehead for peace.

I looked up, about to announce my intent to leave him in the solitude he so desired, but the only thing I saw was his hand resting upon the table. His ring finger. Where it had been bare before, there was now a slim golden band on it, as natural as if it had always been present. I didn't know why but my blood chilled in my veins. I clutched Tenzin closer and he stirred. As if he could feel the apprehension radiating from me.

"So you're engaged?" In those words there was only a veil of civility. This bothered me. I clearly remembered how he'd claimed the majority of the women in court "fire-breathing dragon vipers". I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Zuko had been writing something, but he looked at me directly for the first time since he'd opened the door.

"I am." He said, and his voice was too quiet.

"When is the wedding?"

"Two months from now."

"Your bride?"

"Mai."

I wasn't surprised. Two months from now was the summit. Zuko was going to be married either shortly before or after it, and the timing was no coincidence. It was the one time of the year Team Avatar would have to clear their schedules. I would be there, and this was reality. I always thought it unusual that Zuko hadn't been married first, considering that he was the only one in great need of an heir. Goodness knows how much that would have helped during the post-war turmoil. I hadn't dwelled on it greatly back then, but now that his wedding was actually happening it hit me with the force of a rhino bull. This knowledge conjured not shock but a strange kind of grief. As if I were letting go of something close to me. And yet, Zuko was right there, nearer than he'd been in many years. In my daze I blurted out a question that sounded more like a demand.

"Do you love her?"

Zuko's fist clenched at the same time my own did. The glacier of my eyes met with his molten gold. It was as if a match had been struck in the air between us.

"She's going to be my wife." His voice was harder than the bedrock beneath the palace, and I felt his words cut too deep. I stood abruptly, knocking over my chair. I fidgeted with Tenzin's wrapping to keep my hands from shaking. He woke up.

"That's not an answer."

What he said next made my heart stop, and I felt as if I had swallowed ice cubes.

"Did you love Aang?"

My eyes widened. His words had rendered me absolutely speechless. It was a low blow, and I saw the regret wash over his face even as he'd uttered the phrase. He had undone me in the space of a few seconds, and those words hung above us as ghosts, suspended in time. This day would follow us far into the future. He had dared to bring up _that night _to hurt me. I would have triggered an ice age in his study, had Tenzin not started crying.

I said nothing more before exiting his study, leaving his tea frozen in the pot behind me. A maid found me escaping through the halls with no destination in mind. The tears had sprung to my eyes, but remained desperately contained. She escorted me to my rooms and let me be.

That was how I, master waterbender and wife of the Avatar, ended up alone and crying in the guest bedrooms of the Fire Lord's palace. While nursing my child. I found my mind wandering back to the conversation Aang and I had before we left the air temple.

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><p>"<em>Why do you want to go to the Fire Nation? You could stay here. Tenzin is too young to travel so far."<em>

"_Aang, don't be ridiculous. I know I can take care of him, but there's nobody else here. What if, spirits forbid, something happens to me? You could be gone for an entire month. The Fire Nation is our best option."_

_He paused in contemplation, and I took that opportunity to inundate him with reason. "I haven't seen Zuko since last year. We haven't been able to talk in so long. He's really our only option."_

_The most reliable. The same could not be said for Toph, who had all but vanished into the plains of the Earth Kingdom between her short notes, and Sokka wasn't even an option because he was in the south pole. In the end, Aang had agreed. I was excited to finally speak with Zuko again, properly, this time._

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><p>I thought that I'd be welcomed with open arms, and that we'd spend our time reminiscing about the past. I thought he would be overjoyed that he was Tenzin's godfather. I didn't know what I had done to him, to be treated like an outsider again. It was true that we hadn't been so close in recent years, but with what we went through together… It didn't seem right. He hadn't even told me about his engagement willfully. We had been allies. I could hardly even link the man in the study with the Zuko I'd fought beside, cried beside. I had been alienated by him.<p>

"I thought we were friends, Zuko!" I shouted at my wall. Tenzin didn't seem to mind. I tucked him into the crib they had provided me with and then collapsed upon my bed. I went to sleep with my head a mess, and my heart feeling more than a bit bruised.

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><p>"<em>Zuko." She called. The Fire Lord looked up, surprise on his face. She grinned at him. "What are you doing out here?"<em>

_He contemplated his answer for a moment, letting his shoulders loosen. He held bread in his hands, and the turtle ducks in the pond at his feet were pecking at the pieces floating around._

_He could not lie to her, even a little. "I'm just relaxing." He said, wry smile on his face._

_She laughed. "The great Fire Lord, _relaxing_? I've never heard of that before."_

"_Funny. I'm not so austere all the time, you know."_

_Oh, I know. It's impossible to be so tense in your sleep, after all." She was still teasing him, but in fact he didn't mind. She ended up joining him on the stone bench._

"_Why are you still up?" He asked._

"_For the same reason you are." She told him. Her eyes were playful, but he could see the edges of insomnia that ringed them._

"_You're worried?" Or scared. Uncertain. Tormented. Like him. The prospect gave her pause. She pursed her lips._

"_I am. About lots of things."_

_His curiosity was piqued. "What things?"_

_She was reluctant to tell him, he read the trepidation on her face as he read letters. "Just… everything, maybe. Everyone." And he knew she wasn't trying to avoid the subject outright. Just building up to it._

_They had a lot of things to think about in those days. Things like scars and threats and unruly nobles, but he would never have guessed correctly._

"_Mostly just… Aang."_

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><p>I don't own A:TLA<p> 


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